


Chains

by therecognitionscene



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Little bit of smut, M/M, Post Reichenbach, Punishment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-14
Updated: 2012-11-14
Packaged: 2017-11-18 16:00:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/562827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therecognitionscene/pseuds/therecognitionscene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There had been 5 chains that mattered throughout Sebastian Moran's life. And as he sat there on the roof, he laid them out in his mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chains

Throughout his life, Sebastian Moran had been given, in some way, 5 chains that mattered. The sniper was absolutely certain of this fact, even though it might have once seemed like a silly thing to keep track of, meaningless, unimportant. But as he sat there on that roof, the smoke from his fag curling around his head before it was swept away by the wind, Seb laid those chains out in his mind.

~~~

The first chain was a simple silver ring, a key chain, with one brand-new key and a little crown shaped pendant hanging from it. Sebastian Moran had been sitting at a bar with a mug of cheap beer in his hand when a small, dark-haired man had approached him. James Moriarty, he had said, and the ex-soldier had immediately taken a disliking to the man. It was his voice. High, reedy, almost a song as that posh suit sat next to him on a grimy bar stool. 

Piss off, Seb had growled, but the little prick had been insistent. He had talked to Seb for the better part of an hour about everything and nothing at the same time. The weather, rugby, a fashion show that had been in the city a week ago, some shite American movie about a guy and a girl and a notebook that was a ' truly heart wrenching story of pure love'. Seb had sat and listened, only because the stranger had kept his mug full and picked up the tab. But the conversation was trite, and Sebastian was not one for meaningless talk. 

He was relieved, then, when James had stood with a grin and held out his thin hand for a hearty shake (only after he had exhausted the topic of what colour ties would best suit Sebastian's startlingly blue eyes, of course), and Seb had raised his eyebrows and bid the man a good fucking night, hand shake and that's all done. The door swung shut with a bang as the well-tailored suit disappeared into the darkness of London, and Seb stared at the door for a good long moment before he finally glanced down at the key chain that had been pressed into his hand. 

A small scrap of paper was wrapped around the key, a single address written on it in an elegant script:

Burton Mews, SW1W

But the sniper simply scowled and shoved the supposed gift into his pocket, content to forget all about the night's weird fucking events. 

It was only about a week before Sebastian was walking through London with the key chain in one hand and the address in the other. He swore constantly to himself as he made his way to the high-end apartment building, not even bothering to keep all the oaths under his breath, damning that dark stranger and his own curiosity and cheap beer. 

The key unlocked the door to an spacious, unnecessarily expensive flat, and when Sebastian saw Jim sitting there in the living room, suited up and grinning, he took a deep breath and steeled himself. Things were about to change.

The second chain was given to Sebastian not long after he had begun working for James Moriarty, consulting criminal, as he turned out to be. Jim had somehow gotten him shirtless on the bed, wrists bound to the bedposts with thick cords, and as much as Sebastian wanted to deny that the whole scenario had thrilled him, he knew even by then that it was pointless: Jim could read the sniper like an open book. 

When the little criminal had straddled him with that impossibly sharp needle, thick yet razor-deadly, in his hand and the promise that Seb would love the pain because 'honey, submissive will look so pretty on you', Sebastian had only nodded dumbly and tried to ignore his growing erection. 

The needle had slid easily through his first nipple, the skin giving way without any snags or tears, and the sniper had gasped out loud at the smooth and chillingly burning pain. Jim fastened a nipple ring in the newly formed hole before moving on to Seb's other nipple, and by the time he was done, the sniper was left wondering how it was that he now had pierced nipples and a small psychopath sitting on his chest.

Said psychopath had giggled, though, and reached into the pocket of his trousers (the bastard had only bothered to take off his suit jacket), pulling out a thin gold chain that caught the dim light in the master bedroom. Jim's room. “Look, Sebby.” Fuck that fucking nickname. “Look how pretty. Solid gold, just for you, my dear.” Jim had bent over for a moment and when he straightened up, the chain was connected to the nipple rings, resting light and cold on Seb's chest. 

Jim's eyes had lit up as he hooked a long finger under the chain and gave a sharp tug. Sebastian had howled at the pain, his nipples swollen and sensitive, and it had been a very long night. And the start of their life together as the weirdest fucking lovers Sebastian had ever heard of.

The third chain was one that Sebastian didn't like to think of often. He had received it after he had fucked up. Big time. The details of the botched hit weren't important anymore, only the punishment that he had faced at the hands of Jim. He had given the criminal a call right after it had happened, voice strained with pain and stress, and Jim had hung up without a word. The sniper took his time getting home that night, even though he knew that whatever was waiting for him was unavoidable.

When he finally crawled home, feeling very much like a dog with its tail between its legs, he found Jim sitting in the spare-bedroom-turned-office with his hands steepled under his chin and a blank expression on his face. “Boots and socks off. Jacket, too. On your knees.”

Sebastian obeyed, keeping his eyes downcast as he tried to ignore the blood slowly oozing from a wound on his left shoulder. Grazed by a bullet, not that Jim cared at the moment. The Irishman had only pulled open a drawer and grabbed a thick, rectangular box. “I went out and bought this while you were hiding earlier,” Jim stated in a flat tone. “It should work quite nicely.”

The sniper had stayed still as his boss walked up to him and opened the box, tilting it to show Seb its contents: a chain of thick, copper links attached to a leather.... collar. He could have laughed at the irony of the punishment, after the way he had felt coming back to Jim. But no laughter came as the criminal fastened the collar around his neck tightly, enough to make his breathing laboured. And he definitely wasn't laughing when Jim kicked him down onto his hands and knees and tugged at the chain suddenly, forcing Sebastian to crawl around the flat behind him, head down, stopping only to lick the criminal's fine leather shoes clean when he ended up bleeding on them. 

Jim had made him keep the collar and chain on for five days.

The fourth chain Seb received from Jim came after the criminal had messed up, though he never actually admitted it and probably would never have anyways. Sebastian had told him to stay in the foyer of the diplomat's mansion, told Jim to trust him because something about this hit was off. The sniper was already on edge because Jim had insisted on being there, and when they had arrived and broken in, the whole atmosphere screamed danger to Seb. 

Stay in the foyer. Don't move.

The little criminal had nodded, rolled his eyes, but had agreed to follow Sebastian's orders. With that reassurance in mind, the sniper had begun making his way further into the house. The more carpeted hallways he traveled down, footsteps muffled by the thick Persian swirls and colours, the uneasier he felt, the more his heart beat. When he reached his third dead end, that's when he heard it: a shriek of surprise, high and frightened and indignant. But it came from farther inside the house, not from the foyer, Seb could tell that much, and as he barreled through the manor in a rage to save his employer, all Sebastian could think was that Jim had disobeyed a direct order.

It had taken the sniper all of ten minutes to kill every goddamn person in that room once he had reached the ballroom Jim had wandered into. Sebastian stood, covered in blood, who knows how much of it was his own, panting and staring at the Irish criminal tied to a chair and sporting a black eye. Jim had stared back defiantly, but the little twitches of his bound hands had betrayed him: Jim was scared. Of Sebastian. 

The sniper didn't say a thing about the incident, not when he was untying Jim or carrying him bodily out of the house or cleaning his own wounds back at their flat. Didn't say a word, and Jim tiptoed around the silently furious Tiger for several days. It was on the fourth day of their 'fight' that Sebastian noticed something.

He had been standing at the sink and drinking his strong coffee and whiskey, staring out the window without really seeing. Jim had come into the kitchen and was rummaging around in one of the higher cupboards, struggling to reach something, so Sebastian had taken pity on him and stepped over to help. Jim pressed his lips together without a word and shuffled sideways to let the taller man assist, and that's when Seb saw it.

A single-row ball chain, silver and shiny, was around the criminal's neck. It looked like.... Seb had brought a hand up, hooking a finger under the chain and tugging the necklace out from Jim's shirt. At the end of the chain was a single dog tag. Sebastian's dog tag. 

Jim had glanced up at him through his dark eyelashes, his voice a low murmur. “I got a copy made of yours. I figured, after the other night...” He cleared his throat and went on in a rush, annoyed at his own hesitancy. “I just figured that it'd be nice to let people know who I belonged to. There. Now can you grab me that fucking container or do I have to get a ladder?”

Sebastian had kept Jim in bed the rest of the day. Their fight was over.

The fifth and final chain of importance in Sebastian's life was one that he had never consciously known he had. It wasn't a tangible thing, not like the key chain or the chain leash from his punishment, he knew that now. But sitting on that roof, cigarette almost a stub in his mouth, Sebastian could picture the fifth chain perfectly.

It was a simple thing. Thin. The metal a bright, glistening red. 

And it connected him to the body lying on the roof behind him, drew a shimmering line from the center of his scarred chest to the bloodied and broken mind of his employer, his criminal, his lover.

The text message had been simple, sent to him as Jim sat alone on the roof waiting for Holmes to arrive. But Sebastian had his orders, given to him that morning as the two men had dressed: Don't read the message until the Virgin jumped. 

So Seb had waited, his phone a heavy weight in his pocket, the sound of the unexpected gunshot whatwasthatwhywasthereagun ringing in his ears. Holmes had jumped, just like Jim had said he would, and the sniper forced himself to pack up his gun first as he sat in that stairwell before he grabbed his phone and read the text.

The chain's broken, Tiger. Just move on now. JM

Sebastian spat the remainder of his fag onto the ground as he stood, sniffing loudly once and adjusting his gun bag on his shoulder, looking out over the city that he and Jim had owned. 

Jim's dead eyes stared up at him as he knelt over the still-warm body once more. “It's broken for you, you fucker,” Sebastian murmured, forcing himself to look at the drying blood and the criminal's little smile.

Sebastian closed his own eyes then, a hand hovering over Jim's once-beating heart, and willed the chain to break, willed it to shatter into a thousand fucking pieces so he could move on and forget that James Moriarty had ever been anything more than a name.

He left after a long moment. Left Jim lying there, left their life behind, left London, left. 

When the police finally found Jim's body, they saw the bullet wound and the black, sightless eyes and the single dog tag. But they couldn't see the shattered and broken links of a thin, red chain scattered around the ex-criminal.

The years passed. The world forgot about the Spider and the Tiger. But every once in awhile, a scarred and broken man would sit in a bar with an old key chain in one hand and a mug of cheap beer in the other.

And no one could see the single blood-red link that he held in his mind forever.


End file.
